


Time Enough To Rest

by ivyspinners



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Post-Battle of Endor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 20:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10816425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyspinners/pseuds/ivyspinners
Summary: "I can't listen to this, Dameron." Jyn, each word low and angry, but he recognized the fear beneath. "I'm getting him out."There's rather a lot people will risk, when someone they love is in danger. At the Battle of Endor, Jyn and Cassian are reminded first hand.





	Time Enough To Rest

Jyn's face, relaxed in sleepy contentment, was the loveliest image in the galaxy. She lay sprawled over her bunk, limbs askew, unbound hair falling into her mouth and swaying with each puff of breath. She allowed no one else in the rebellion this softness, this quiet intimacy. Each time she let him in felt like a small, thrilling victory.

He savored the image, warmth coiling in his chest.

Indistinct mutterings, and then, with her eyes still closed, an order. "Come here."

Cassian didn't need to be told twice.

Jyn's arm curled around his waist as she scooted closer, tugging him back against her chest. Warm, so warm.

Her arm tightened, hot against his skin, _too_ hot, scorching to the point of pain. The discomfort sharpened until he reached to tug her hand away. Instead of Jyn, his fingers found something warm and sticky and--

+

\--an explosion of agony, jerking him awake and screaming back into hell.

Endor swam back into view, all smothering forest and toppled foliage, then faded out again as pain wracked his body. He gasped for air, and immediately regretted it as vibroblades plunged a path up his chest. Awareness returned in slow, muddled steps: scorching heat across his abdomen, hacking at his legs, rocks digging into his thigh, and at last, blaster fire lighting the clearing red.

He was pinned beneath a refitted heavy artillery gun as Stormtroopers and Pathfinders exchanged fire, both shielded and trapped. Blood loss gnawed at his thoughts--he'd sustained crush injuries when the artillery rolled over his thighs. And it _hurt_ , immediate and inescapable.

Sharp, desperate pleas rang in his ear, cutting through the haze. Cassian would recognize that voice anywhere, whatever state it was in. Whatever state _he_ was in.

"Cassian? _Cassian?_ "

 _Jyn_ hovered behind his sternum, but his throat closed up. He breathed through the broken ribs, wet his cracked lips, and tried again.

"I'm here." It took every muscle to force the words out. He wasn't sure she heard over basterfire and ancient trees crashing into dirt.

Her voice shook. "Okay. I can see you. We're going to get you--"

Half the sky flashed orange, burning into his retinas. When vision returned, he saw a full fifty meters of treeline vaporized into mist and dust. The top half of his artillery had simply vanished from existence. No human could survive such a blast.

Panic edged out agony for a brief, blinding second. He searched the line of trees for movement, because Jyn could see him, which meant she was close, which meant--

"Answer me," crackled across the comm in his ear. His entire body sagged in relief.

"Jyn," he breathed again, just her name, clinging to its familiar weight.

Explosions shifted the heavy artillery gun, jostling his injuries. His vision went black.

Someone was screaming, desperate, animalistic. It took a moment to realize that that someone was him.

He was going light-headed with blood loss, which ought to dull the pain, but it didn't seem to work that way. What had started as a throb in his thighs now spiked into torment each time the ground moved.

Surfacing from the pain took longer this time.

"I can't listen to this, Dameron," Jyn, each word low and angry, but he recognized the fear beneath. "I'm getting him out."

No. The entire clearing rained with blaster fire and falling timber. _No_. He was already dead. Maybe it would be in agony, but he _knew_ that he could bear anything but the sight of her body, burned and lifeless, if she tried to rescue him now.

He gritted his teeth. When that didn't work, he spent the last of his strength struggling to inch his arm from the burns on his stomach. The artillery gun tilted again as another explosion burst a few feet away. His vision went white for a second, but it freed him enough to drag his fist and stuff it into his mouth.

Now, he could not scream.

"Cassian? I'm coming after you. Don't you dare drift off now. You need to be here to see what twenty years of fighting wins." Jyn again, and he clung to that lifeline. Bit down harder on his knuckles to stop the moan of pain. Her voice broke when he didn't respond. "Cassian? Say something. _Anything_."

He should pull the comm out of his ear, but he was afraid of his arm flopping, useless, if he tried to pull his hand from his mouth. And if he tried to respond, the screams would break loose.

And if they broke loose, Vader himself could not stop Jyn from rushing to her death to save him. He knew, because if their roles were reversed, if she was screaming just beyond reach, nothing would stop _him_.

"No," she whispered, faint, broken. "No. Let me go, Dameron. Get your fucking hands _off_ me!"

The ground swayed as he listened, and he shivered. _Cold_. He couldn't feel his legs. He receded from himself for a while; when he returned, Jyn's voice was in his ear again, flat, lifeless.

"You can stop now, Sergeant. We need your gun. I'll behave."

Her despair brought equal parts pain and relief. He was struggling with himself again, when the world stopped.

It... stopped. Fire lit up the sky, and the blasters in the clearing stuttered to a halt. He squinted. His vision blurred, but not enough to hide the dark moon lit up from behind. Destruction exploded out, an inferno spreading towards each horizon.

The Death Star -- it was gone.

It was gone, or well on its way. They'd won.

He watched, entranced, as starbursts streaked across the sky -- parts of the Death Star entering the horizon, like a meteor shower bringing hope at last. He would have enjoyed watching this under different circumstances, but there was only one sight lovelier. He'd see it behind his eyelids soon enough. Time enough to rest.

Cassian closed his eyes.

It was warm, and it didn't hurt.

+

And then it hurt again.

Sunlight warmed his face, painted shadows across his vision. He blinked, bleary, certain he'd stumbled into someone else's sweet dream. But no, his legs still ached, in a muted way. He was able to focus elsewhere. His skin slid, slick, with the telltale slimy texture of bacta, and when he sighed there was no pain.

Pure, translucent blue sky spread out overhead. He lay on a bedroll in an open air tent, situated between ancient Endor oaks. Similar tents and a couple of beat-up bacta tanks dotted the landscape. Safety, then.

After a moment, he registered the weight across his chest. Cassian crooked his neck to look. There was a very familiar arm thrown over his stomach. He followed where it led, to a face he thought he would never see again.

For an instant, the world seemed to fade away. He had no words for it. He knew her asleep, at peace, face striped with buzzing lights. He'd seen her frown, silent but restless, in the mornings on a mission. This was something new.

Jyn's body curved around his, one leg tangled with his, their fingers twined together like she had tried to lie by his side, but rolled to curl up closer in sleep. Her chest rose and fell, steady, comforting. White-gold light spilled everywhere, glinting in her hair, painting her pale cheeks with gentle warm. They were both private people who left moments of intimacy for the safety of a darkened bunk. To see her so relaxed in the open made his heart stutter. He couldn't look away.

She made a soft sound, drawing his attention to the bandages disappearing up her sleeves. As a rule, Jyn was noiseless in sleep unless very tired, or injured. Right now it was probably both.

As if in a trance, he reached for her with his free hand. It felt like a dream to run his fingers through her hair, over and over, the wirey texture comforting.

"That feels good," Jyn mumbled against his chest. "Keep going."

It was tempting.

He rested his hand against her temple instead. She groaned in protest, but crawled up the bedroll to press a kiss against his lips, warm and sweet. It almost distracted him from how, up close, her face gleamed with tear tracks.

"You're alive," he breathed, brushing the trail away with his thumb. It was a gift he never took for granted.

"That's my line," Jyn retorted. She drew back, watching him like a hawk, as though he might vanish.

"Then we match," he murmured, cupping her face. She was too far away, and he wanted to feel her weight again.

In typical Jyn fashion, she refused to be deterred. Her voice was very small. "You stopped screaming."

To admit it would be to admit that he'd done so on purpose, but he wasn't going to lie to her. "Yes."

"I thought you were _gone_."

"I thought I was, too."

His lack of guilt seemed to tip her off, and her expression hardened. "Don't do it again."

"To run to me would have been death," he said. Cassian remembered blaster fire ripping holes into the ground. He wasn't going to apologize for it. "I couldn't live with that."

"You almost didn't," Jyn said. " _I_ couldn't live with that."

He didn't respond. This argument was a familiar one, played out in different iterations. I couldn't leave you to die; I couldn't betray you even for the sake of the rebellion; I couldn't stay away. He hated that they were so alike, even as he understood Jyn's fierce need to keep him alive. He felt it too. _Don't you dare die without me, even if it means I die with you._

Cassian wasn't going to back down when it came to this relationship, to this, and Jyn was too stubborn to give an inch. Such arguments tended to end in a way both inappropriate for public consumption and too heated for recovering soldiers.

Their eyes met. So much fire in her gaze, burning bright.

A medi droid interrupted before Cassian gave into the urge to try anyway.

"Oh good, you're awake. And _you_ are in the wrong bedroll, Sergeant Erso."

"Too bad," she said, rolling from atop him. He missed her warmth at once.

"I have been instructed to give the following message to all Alliance members," the droid whirred. A click, and Senator Mon Mothma's voice rang out, loud and clear. "The Death Star was destroyed above Endor, in no small part thanks to your brave actions. The Emperor and Darth Vader are dead, alongside numerous members of the military. We owe you a great debt."

It wasn't a dream, then. Laughter seemed to burst out of his chest when the message finished. Jyn gazed back with equal delight, the argument shelved for the moment.

"Now, Sergeant Erso, you need rest too."

"I'm not going anywhere," she snapped, immediately defensive.

It turned its head toward Cassian. "I have been informed that in such circumstances, you are the most effective voice of reason." Jyn sputtered, but the droid marched on. "Sergeant Erso sustained burns across one third of her body and required an emergency laparotomy to stem her bleeding, after she dragged you off the battlefield. This was ten days ago. You received bacta as a last resort. She was deemed stable and did not."

Jyn's eyes locked with his as he reached out, pressing his palm against her stomach. She looked as free of guilt as Cassian had felt earlier.

"In light of this, the best treatment I can offer now is _rest_." The droid's voice dripped with clear annoyance now; despite himself, Cassian could feel the corner of his mouth twitch.

"I'll make sure she sleeps," he promised, staring down the droid until it left, rolling into another tent.

Jyn flopped onto her back; he didn't miss her wince at the sudden movement.

"We won," she murmured. "For a while, anyway."

"Long enough to _rest_ ," he said, with so much emphasis that she swatted at his arm, even as she shifted to curl her body around his.

There was quiet, then, for a minute or two at least.

"This conversation isn't over," Jyn told him, smothering a yawn.

It's fine, Cassian thought sleepily, which had crossed his mind before. It was followed, like a shadow, with one that had not: they had time to argue this again.

+

fin


End file.
